Frequently, a clinician must perform electrophysiological studies in patients having implanted permanent pacemakers or cardioverters/defibrillators to determine accurately the patient's pathological condition, cardiovascular characteristics and other information needed in order to prescribe a particular therapeutic treatment for the patient. Such studies often require the inducement of a tachyarrhythmia of the heart such as ventricular tachycardia.
Originally, these studies were invasive because they required the surgical insertion of instruments such as temporary intracardiac pacing catheters into the patient. Thus, these studies were accompanied by some risk and preferably were performed in hospitals. Therefore, these studies were not only expensive, but also time consuming and caused patient anxiety.
In order to avoid medical risks to the patient and hospitalization, non-invasive programmed stimulation (NIPS) procedures have been developed to permit the electrophysiological studies to be performed in a physician's office during routine follow-up visits.
These procedures utilize the implanted cardiac stimulation device and an external programmer. By virtue of the presence of a permanent pacing/defibrillation lead associated with the implanted cardiac stimulation device, the need for placement of a temporary intracardiac pacing catheter is eliminated. Typically, NIPS procedures consist generally of the application of premature electrical pulses at precise intervals to the myocardium of the patient's heart by the implanted cardiac stimulation device and its associated lead or leads. The implanted device applies the stimulation pulses under commands from the external programmer which is manually controlled by the clinician. Prior to the procedure, the clinician manually defines the intervals between the successive stimulation pulses on the programmer. After the implanted device applies the succession of stimulation pulses to the heart, the clinician then, on the programmer, manually observes results such as tachyarrhythmia induction or lack of capture by the stimulation pulses. Thereafter, the clinician alters the stimulation pulse intervals and causes the programmer to initiate another application of the successive stimulation pulses to the patient's heart by the implanted cardiac stimulation device. As a result, NIPS studies, as currently constituted, are tedious to administer, consume considerable time, and lead to considerable cost to the electrophysiology laboratory.